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Wednesday, January 30, 2013

The countdown

Yesterday was L's kindergarten screening. Unlike her sister's experience, this child bounded away from me. That's her, up by the door, running to get into the building, chiding me for approaching at a walking pace. C'mon, slowpoke! she yelled about a dozen times, so eager was she to get inside.

We found our name tags. She sat on the library steps and I said, "they'll call your name in a bit, but I'll sit with you and we can read until then."

No. She dismissed me. I think those tables down there are for you. You can go. I can sit here. She turned her back on me and started chatting with the girl sitting on her other side.

I will tell you two things:

-they are different children, these two daughters of mine, and I am completely aware how unfair it is to either of them to compare them against each other
-but this child, she who does not struggle with anxiety, oh how I appreciate her adapatability. She is a balm on old traumas.

Until she told me to sit down, I still felt the sting of two years ago. I love that girl and I love this girl and I will support each of them as they need it but when it's easy? Hallelujah. Let me try this just sitting down and chatting with other parents thing.

How did she do? I don't know, since this time I didn't see it. She said she had fun, and when it was over she didn't want to leave the elementary school. We gave ourselves a tour of the building. We stopped at the classroom E had for kindergarten last year that we hope will be L's next year. We found E's kindergarten locker. We found her two first grade classrooms, and because the teachers were inside, we stopped in, sate at E's desk, visited the first grades. L accepted an offer from E's teacher to skip that kindergarten silliness and come right to first grade. Now she's wondering how to make it so. We wrote a note in E's locker for her to find today. We visited the turtle in the science room.

For weeks, L has been asking: how many days until I go to the same school as my sister? I had figured it out when it was about 220 days. We're still over 200 until the end of August and every night she asks. We're going to have to make a countdown-to-kindergarten tally. She's ready, this one.